G.R. No. 70890 September 18, 1992 - CRESENCIO LIBI, ET AL. v. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, ET AL. : September 1992 - Philipppine Supreme Court Decisions

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• In fact, on cross-examination, he had earlier admitted that as far as the entrance of the wound, the trajectory of the bullet and the exit of the wound are concerned, it is possible that Wendell Libi shot himself.

• On appeal to respondent court, said judgment of the lower court dismissing the complaint of therein plaintiffs-appellants was set aside and another judgment was rendered against defendants-appellees

• rejected the imputation and contended that an unknown third party, whom Wendell may have displeased or antagonized by reason of his work as a narcotics informer of the Constabulary Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), must have caused Wendell’s death and then shot Julie Ann to eliminate any witness and thereby avoid identification.

• Due to the absence of an eyewitness account of the circumstances surrounding the death of both minors, their parents, who are the contending parties herein, posited their respective theories drawn from their interpretation of circumstantial evidence

• in the name of petitioner Cresencio Libi, which was recovered from the scene of the crime inside the residence of private respondents

• For more than two (2) years before their deaths, Julie Ann Gotiong and Wendell Libi were sweethearts until December, 1978 when Julie Ann broke up her relationship with Wendell

• respondent spouses are the legitimate parents of Julie Ann Gotiong who, at the time of the deplorable incident

• was an 18-year old first year commerce student of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City; while petitioners are the parents of Wendell Libi, then a minor between 18 and 19 years of age living with his aforesaid parents, and who also died in the same event on the same date.

• During the first and second weeks of January, 1979, Wendell kept pestering Julie Ann with demands for reconciliation but the latter persisted in her refusal, prompting the former to resort to threats against her. In order to avoid him, Julie Ann stayed in the house of her best friend, Malou Alfonso

• On January 14, 1979, Julie Ann and Wendell died, each from a single gunshot wound inflicted with the same firearm

• Private respondents

• submitted that Wendell caused her death by shooting her with the aforesaid firearm and, thereafter, turning the gun on himself to commit suicide. On the other hand, Petitioners,

• As a result of the tragedy, the parents of Julie Ann filed

• Court of First Instance of Cebu against the parents of Wendell to recover damages arising from the latter’s vicarious liability under Article 2180 of the Civil Code. After trial, the court below rendered judgment

• ismissing plaintiffs’ complaint for insufficiency of the evidence.

• Whether or not Article 2180 of the Civil Code was correctly interpreted by respondent court to make petitioners liable for vicarious liability.

• Dr. Cerna himself could not categorically state that the body of Wendell Libi was left untouched at the funeral parlor before he was able to conduct his autopsy. It will also be noted that Dr. Cerna was negligent in not conducting a paraffin test on Wendell Libi, hence possible evidence of gunpowder residue on Wendell’s hands was forever lost when Wendell was hastily buried.cralawnad

• Petitioners’ defense that they had exercised the due diligence of a good father of a family, hence they should not be civilly liable for the crime committed by their minor son, is not borne out by the evidence on record either.

• Petitioner Amelita Yap Libi, mother of Wendell, testified that her husband, Cresencio Libi, owns a gun which he kept in a safety deposit box inside a drawer in their bedroom.

• They have never seen their son Wendell taking or using the gun. She admitted, however, that on that fateful night the gun was no longer in the safety deposit box. 16 We, accordingly, cannot but entertain serious doubts that petitioner spouses had really been exercising the diligence of a good father of a family by safely locking the fatal gun away. Wendell could not have gotten hold thereof unless one of the keys to the safety deposit box was negligently left lying around or he had free access to the bag of his mother where the other key was.